Conlang Historical Linguistics of "proto-barbarian"

A forum for all topics related to constructed languages
Post Reply
CarpeMors
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 57
Joined: 05 Sep 2012 22:28

Conlang Historical Linguistics of "proto-barbarian"

Post by CarpeMors »

This is a post about the processes I use to evolve a couple of languages from a proto-language. The resulting language family is highly tonal and monosyllabic in nature. The process I am using also causes there to be non-similar cognates, that is, every cognate grouping looks so dissimilar as to be perceived as coming from unrelated languages (to the casual observer).
Currently, I have a pretty good foundation structured for the evolution of consonantal reflexes from the proto-language. Vowel evolution is sketchy at the moment, and so I'll just pretend that the vowels are held constant.

The proto-language, as of yet unnamed, but which I call offhandedly "proto-barbarian" was spoken by the horse-riding conquerers of a vast fertile plan on the largest contenent of my world, which is in a state of design flux, atm. Their culture was rough, uncouth, and based around dominance displays, power struggles, and horses. The conquered were small tribes of related nomadic hunter-gatherers with the begins of a forest based communal horticulture. The only good things that came from the "barbarians" were rudimentary civilization in the form of imposed warlord-based regional monarchies and their language, which became the lingua franca in an area that was already linguistically stratified. It was obviously the prestige languages of the court and the occupying armies, and once they killed themselves off in various areas, and also were overthrown in other areas, their regional dialects became the wellspring of a rather interesting family of languages.

In contrast to the highly tonal and monosyllabic daughter languages, proto-barbarian was polysyllabic (yet isolating grammatically, which is interesting) with a moraic pitch accent system. It had three morae: low, mid, and high, with two allophonic pitch registers conditioned by the voicing qualities of preceding consonants.

Here is its phonology:

m, m͡b n, n͡d ɲ, ɲ͡ɟ ŋ, ŋ͡g
Pʰ bʰ tʰ̪ d̪ʰ tʰ dʰ cʰ ɟʰ kʰ gʰ
p b t̪ d̪ t d c ɟ k g Ɂ
s͡p z͡b s͡t z͡d ʃ͡c Ʒ͡ɟ ʃ͡k Ʒ͡g
f v s z ʃ Ʒ ɕ ʑ ɧ Ç ʝ x γ h
cç͡ ɟʝ͡
Ʋ l̪ s͡l̪ z͡l̪ ɾ j ɰ

Several unique features of proto-barbarian are its series of voiced nasal stops. These four /mb/, /nd/, /ɲj/, /ŋg/ are realized as nasals followed immediately by voiced stops, and were perceived as phonemic. There was also a series of sibilantized stops, in voiced and voiceless varieties. There were realized as either voiced or voiceless alveolar or palato-alveolar fricatives followed immediately by stops, depending upon their environment. They, too, were perceived as phonemic. There was also two sibilantized dental laterals. Everything else was pretty run of the mill. It can be noted that proto-barbarian employed a wider range of consonants (and vowels) than is normal, but not anything truly remarkable. Again, grammatically it had the peculiar feature of being polysyllabic in most of its words but was completely isolating in nature.

Its vowels were as such:

12 basic vowels and 11 basic diphthongs: /u o a e i æ ʊ ɔ ə ǐ ɛ ɚ u͜i o͜u o͜a o͜i a͜i a͜e e͜u e͜o e͜i æ͜ɔ æ͜i/

Then there were three series of prearticulated vowels, which were these 23 vowels with either a labial approximate onset, a palatal approximate onset, or an alveolar approximate onset, possibly an alveolar flap. All of these were perceived as phonemic, and as altering the corresponding vowels.

The W Series: /ʷo ʷa ʷi ʷe ʷæ ʷʊ ʷɔ ʷə ʷǐ ʷɛ ʷɚ ʷo͜u ʷo͜a ʷo͜i ʷa͜i ʷa͜e ʷe͜u ʷe͜o ʷe͜i ʷæ͜ɔ ʷæ͜I/

The J Series (read as "ya"): /ʲu ʲo ʲa ʲe ʲæ ʲʊ ʲɔ ʲə ʲǐ ʲɛ ʲɚ ʲu͜i ʲo͜u ʲo͜a ʲo͜i ʲa͜i ʲa͜e ʲe͜u ʲe͜o ʲe͜i ʲæ͜ɔ ʲæ͜i/

The LR Series (read as "lruh"): /ˡu ˡo ˡa ˡi ˡe ˡæ ˡʊ ˡɔ ˡə ˡǐ ˡɛ ˡɚ ˡu͜i ˡo͜u ˡo͜a ˡo͜i ˡa͜i ˡa͜e ˡe͜u ˡe͜o ˡe͜i ˡæ͜ɔ ˡæ͜i/

One of the interesting aspects of the evolution of proto-barbarian into its daughter languages (called here, due to their hazy and murky current nature as "Fire", "Water", and "Wood") is that the historical linguistic principle of retention is unobserved in this particular process. Every consonant and vowel of proto-barbarian is altered in some degree into a new reflex in each of the daughter languages. Thus, the historical linguistic principle of innovation prevails. But one of the most unique things about the evolution of this particular language family, whatever little cozy corner of the universe it supposedly exists in, is that despite innovation, the vowel set of the daughter languages, besides the development of tone, remains the same set. And in the consonantal category, there are some major changes, and yet all the daughter languages end up having the same set of consonants, but with different distributions.

Let me elaborate: This is all possible due to two historical linguistic principles that I use, and at least think to have discovered them, but they probably already exist in some form. They mainly deal with aesthetic and philosophical principles, but do effect how the languages evolve. They are the principle of symmetry and the principle of fertility.

The principle of symmetry states that 1) Every consonant and vowel is changed in some way, and than in changing, it is not mirrored by another language in exactly the same way. 2) Every consonant has an inverse evolution. (This second rule is not as strict, and is seen to be violated many times).

This rule basically states that for any proto-phoneme (say) */p/, it will result in a phoneme (say) */f/ in one daughter language, this then means than in any other daughter language, an */f/ will never derive from a proto-phoneme */p/. The part of the rule states basically that if there is a proto-phoneme (say) */zb/ and in a daughter language it becomes */v/, then its inverse, proto-phonemic */sp/ will become */f/ in that same daughter language. Taken together, these are the rule of symmetry. Naturally, languages don't usually evolve like this, but it is an aesthetic constraint I have placed upon the system.

The rule of fertility is basically the complement of the rule of symmetry. It states: for every proto-phoneme x, there is a different reflex in every daughter language, both different from each reflex in the other daughter languages and different from the proto-phoneme. This is why the historical linguistic principle of retention does not apply.

While the vowels are similar, but with a different distribution (plus tone) between proto-barbarian and Fire, Water, and Wood, the consonants are different. The shared phonemic inventory of the three daughter languages is:

m n ɲ ŋ
pʰ bʰ tʰ dʰ cʰ ɟʰ kʰ gʰ
p b t d c ɟ k g ʔ
f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ç ʝ x ɣ h
p͡f b͡v t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ c͡ç ɟ͡ʝ k͡ x g͡ɣ
ʋ r l ɬ ɮ j rʲ ʎ ɰ
CarpeMors decit "ubi est balneum rubrum in hero?" dum comedeban carotam in arcae pulchrae.
Post Reply